Growing up in 1970s Canada, a junior
high school friend introduced me to the Avro Arrow, the Canadian fighter
plane that was technologically 10 years ahead of what the Americans
and the Russians had produced. In 1959, shortly after they came to power,
the Conservative Diefenbaker government killed that pride of Canadian
technology and took the baffling step of destroying all evidence of
the Arrow's existence. Most of Canada’s best and brightest engineers
and scientists left the country to power the American aeronautical industry
and the space program of the 1960s. Not until the Canadarm in the 1980s
did Canadian engineering recover its pride. In a similar way, the recent
systematic destruction of CBC Radio 2’s classical programming and
the closing of the CBC Radio Orchestra will have a detrimental effect
on Canadian culture.

For the last 5 years, CBC and Radio-Canada
(SRC) have been systematically dismantling their classical programming.
The seeds were planted 10 years ago in Montreal, when media personality
Jean-Pierre Coallier started the “easy listening” classical music
station CJPX, or Radio-classique. To everyone’s surprise, marketed
with ads and billboards using a black and white image of Beethoven,
Radio-classique gained a major market share, doubling and tripling the
listenership of Radio-Canada’s Chaîne-culturelle. The French network
fought back valiantly to try to capture first place in classical music
but in a misguided effort, by first using the image of Mozart to go
against Beethoven, and then trotting out a retired Montreal Canadiens
TV announcer to prop up ratings for its morning show. Misguided because
instead of promoting its strengths – knowledgeable programming –
it was pandering for ratings. Some market research would have told their
decision-makers that Beethoven beats Mozart 2 to 1. Arguably, they could
instead have countered Beethoven with Mahler to market themselves as
providers of passionate and thoughtful content.

The Radio-classique conundrum exposed
an existential question for the SRC decision-makers: how can the SRC,
a corporation with hundreds of staff and a billion-dollar budget justify
its existence when it draws fewer listeners than a company with a handful
of staff spinning CDs?

Four years ago, when it abandoned
its Chaîne-culturelle for its music-only Espace-musique, being all
music to all people, Radio-Canada simply gave up the classical music
and culture market. After its initial bump in ratings, it has taken
over 3 years for Espace-musique to finally proclaim a rise in listeners,
yet it is still behind CJPX. Looking back, the decision to abandon its
cultural mandate is perplexing from both a business and philosophical
sense. According to Jim Collins's best-selling business treatise,
Good to Great, good companies become great (and great companies
stay great) because they stay close to their core values, what they
do best or what they are leaders in. By destroying the Chaîne-culturelle,
SRC abandoned what it did best, and by playing more diverse types of
music, the raison d’être of Espace musique became to produce ratings,
the currency for commercial radio. In the process, it systematically
eliminated many of its best programs and employees.

Why Ratings?

Ratings are important for commercial
radio to set their ad rates and to keep their advertisers happy. Since
CBC/SRC is publicly funded, the quest for ratings should not be a fundamental
concern. However, CBC/SRC’s board has been lobbying the federal government
to increase or index its budget, which has been frozen for years. Indeed,
CBC/SRC should have been indexed long ago and the funding woes have
long been felt. Instead of fighting for quality programming as the reason
for increasing its budget, the CBC Board has chosen a politically convenient
approach: wrapping itself around its new mission to be representative
of the country's diverse mosaic. Seen in this context the recent push
for ratings is nothing more than a tactic to justify increased funding,
and failing that, a cost-cutting measure.

The reason for public radio

Canada already has many commercial radio
stations spinning CDs, so it doesn't need a national broadcaster doing
the same thing. The void created by the changes at the French network
has now inspired Parti-Québecois MNA Daniel Turp to create the Mouvement
Radio-Québec (see sidebar) as a means to promote arts and culture in
Quebec. If there was a Trojan horse to revive the separatist debate,
this would be it. Nevertheless, if CBC/SRC were to be created
today as the national broadcaster, its mandate or mission would be similar
to the proposed Radio-Quebec, that is, to be a conduit of arts and culture,
ideas and science.

Canada already supports the arts
through the Canada Council to the tune of $181 Million. Adding the amounts
from cities and provinces, government funding for the arts would be
close to $400 Million. A national radio should protect this investment
by promoting the fine arts. It’s called synergy. n